Very interesting indeed how Drugwars created the economy foundations. I've read from several tiny investors in Drugwars, they already earned their investment back. I invested a tiny bit more (around 60 Steem) and am close to ROI, while I mostly concentrated on gettting the daily productions as high as possible aiming at Alcohol and Weapons and once so often used Heist. Recently we also noticed a reduction in total Steem in the reward pool, and the shift from daily production to moving produced Drugs into Heist. I've also read statements of one of the top 3 players, he is in Drugwars not for the game, but for the money, solely for the money. While he invested maybe 5k/6k Steem, he will face a longer time for ROI then I. Since I do not necesarily believe in the long term of Drugwars economic system, I didn't decide to invest that much money. Actually, with the recent changes, it is questionable how long the game will survive. Anyway, sub-liniair is a problem as is the reason of some of the players (investors rather than players). I actually think, Steem should not be earned through production and heist, I think Steem shouldh've been earned through reaching certain more complex gaming goals. Since Steem earning is so easy, it'll attract more users, with (most of) them thinking they can earn extra Steem. That in itself is good for the uptake of the service. But when the intentions of the users are different to being a real game player, than it is questionable if such uptake is wanted. The other reason for the way they started the economics could be for the creators to earn as much as possible Steem in the first days and weeks; This may not be true, but it could be. Than also, the economics they implemented support that unlike implementing more complex gaming goals to earn Steem.

Anyway, I actually think that super-liniair, liniair, and sub-liniair are all possible, all have their advantages, all have their disadvantages. I actually think, for a community like Steemit or game like Drugwars to work, rewards shall not be direct, but somehow indirect, not easy to get for anybody, but complex to get for everybody whether having lots of power and/or money or not.

All these initiatives shows me one thing: when money is at play, the abuse in whatever form will come in quickly, and before we know it, the abuse is at such levels the service and user experience itself is not good enough anymore for those users with the right intentions and most of these users will leave.

Ponzi scheme was used around Drugwars. Maybe this is the same for most of the crypto based services? The early investors and some of the abusers seem to profit the most.

To still try and keep the service running: What then happens is that some of the wealthy users are helping the poor, while most of the wealthy users are enriching themselves resulting in the fact that a few rich users will become not only in absolute terms but also in relative terms even more rich. Very similar to the real/fiat world in which I can't see we are getting out of, unless the whole financial system collapses and we collectively come to our senses and adopt a kinda Budhistic mental state in which we like to help others, before we help ourselves and a Socialistic (maybe even marxistic) mental state in which we believe we shall create a society on equal terms (communism showed it is not easy, maybe even impossible).

While the idea of crypto currencies is great; It is questionable how this can be implemented in the way it was originally sold to us; And it is even more questionable how services can benefit from direct money rewards controlled by algorithms and people (abusers mostly).